Bekhorot 6

According to the biblical narrative, when God placed the first human into the Garden of Eden, God instructed, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you must not eat of it” (Genesis 2:16–17), effectively granting permission for people to eat all that grows from the ground (with the exception of one tree, but that is another story). After the flood, God tells Noah, “Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these, you must not, however, eat flesh with its life-blood in it,” (Genesis 9:3-4), extending permission for people to eat meat. The Torah later restricts consumption to kosher animals. There is, however, no story in the Torah that explicitly grants permission for people to consume milk or, by extension, dairy products.

On today’s daf, the Gemara seeks a source for that permission:

From where do we derive that the milk of a kosher animal is permitted?
 
The Gemara’s attempt to answer the question starts with a verse that became familiar to us in Tractate Chullin: “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” From this verse, which appears in the Torah three times in (Exodus 23:19, 34:26,and Deuteronomy 14:21), the rabbis derive the prohibition from mixing milk and meat. The Gemara suggests that if the Torah prohibits the mixing of milk and meat, that implies that each is separately permitted.

This is a reasonable inference, but not determinative. The rabbis understand that the triplicate appearance of the verse generates three prohibitions: eating, cooking, and benefiting from the mixture of meat and milk. Perhaps, then, when it comes to milk, only one of these actions is permitted. Perhaps, say, we can only benefit from milk and its derivatives, but not consume them.

And yet, the rabbis consumed dairy products and it is obvious to them this is permissible. They just need to find the source of the permission. The Gemara next turns to another verse granting permission to eat meat as a possible source of the permission to consume dairy:
 
Deuteronomy 12:15 states, “You may slaughter,” but you may not use its wool from shearing. You may eat its “meat,” but you may not consume its milk. It can be inferred from here that milk of non-sacred kosher animals is permitted.

In Tractate Zevachim, we learned that animals that are designated for sacrifice and then become ineligible can be redeemed for money. This allows for the slaughter and consumption of their meat. In its original context, this verse is not talking about animals that have been designated for sacrifices that develop a blemish, but as we have seen many times, the rabbis are more than willing to re-contextualize a verse. As interpreted above, the rabbis say that we cannot shear its wool or consume its milk. The Gemara infers that if we explicitly cannot consume the milk of a disqualified sacrificial animal that has been redeemed, this implies that we can consume the milk of a regular, never sanctified kosher animal.

This reading is also called into question. Again, says the Gemara, it’s possible that the verse’s intention is to allow us to benefit financially from the milk of non-sanctified kosher animals, but not to drink it.
The Gemara moves on to explore other verses: Proverbs 27:27, I Samuel 17:18, Isaiah 55:1. Each, it suggests, can be interpreted to mean that Jews may consume dairy (from kosher animals). The first falls to the same challenge, that it only proves we can benefit from dairy. The second survives the challenge because it takes place during wartime when it was unlikely that the soldiers had time for commercial activity. The third goes unchallenged, but could easily be challenged in the same manner. It should be noted that none of these verses are from the Torah, suggesting that the rabbis are stretching to find biblical legal precedent.
 
Notably missing from the list is Genesis 18:8, where Abraham models hospitality by serving milk and curds to his guests. However, he also serves a calf at the same meal, so perhaps Abraham cannot be taken as a model for what Jews are permitted to eat, despite other talmudic texts that insist he followed halakhah to the letter and served the dairy separately (and prior to) the meat.

The Gemara does find one more option, Exodus 3:17 (and other similar verses), in which the land of Israel is described as, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” The rabbis assert:
 
If milk was not permitted, would the verse praise the land to us with an item that is not suitable for consumption?
 
This verse goes unchallenged; the possibility that it too merely permits Jews to benefit from milk, and not to consume it, is not raised. It is not clear why this challenge is not tried here.

And that concludes the discussion, raising for me another question: Do we really need a verse to permit the consumption of dairy? The husbanding of animals for their milk has been a part of human civilization since its infancy. If not expressly forbidden by the Torah, couldn’t we infer that it is permitted? Perhaps. But the rabbis have a deeply held conviction that the earth belongs to God, we are merely its safekeepers. And, if we are to partake of the bounty that it provides, we need God’s permission.

Read all of Bekhorot 6 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on September 23, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.